Scientists believe these changes are due, in large part, to CO2 emissions which have been steadily increasing since the industrial revolution began in the 1800s.

To get a handle on how our human impacts might shape the climactic future scientists use global models.

These models are further reaching that those used daily by meteorologists as they forecast.

Research Climatologist and Modeler Dr. Keith Dixon from the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, New Jersey said they're looking at interactions of physical elements.

"We take the planet and divide it up into millions of little boxes,” Dixon said. “in each one of those boxes we have the model use the rules of physics in order to simulate how the temperatures change, how the atmosphere flows, ocean currents flow and how these different things interact."

So with temperatures expected to increase throughout the world, what does that mean for historically colder states like Minnesota and Wisconsin?

Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Ben Santer said, "Profound changes in the max and min temperatures. In heavy rainfall events; in the amount of moisture in the atmosphere. And the time at which lakes melt is occurring earlier and earlier."

And on top of that we could see more tornadoes.

Santer said, "There is credible evidence of a northward shift in tornado alley. And it's quite possible that states like MN will be affected by such atmospheric circulations shifts."

Dixon says, world–wide we'll see weather patterns change with some areas seeing more moisture and some less, but the bottom line, he says, seems to be that across the globe we'll see temperatures going up.